The costs and benefits of critical care units (Coronary Care Units, Intensive Care Units, Burn Care Facilities, etc.) have been more debated than researched. The majority of research to date has involved comparisons between settings with or without a designation of critical or intensive care. Some recent research has suggested that differences exist in the costs and the benefits both among critical care units and among general ward settings. The proposed research seeks to go beyond this dichotomous classification 1) to examine the degree to which essential elements of care are present in hospital settings (however they are classified) and 2) to determine how differences in these elements of care and organizational structures functions relate to better patient survival rates and to costs. The research will employ multidisciplinary and multimethod approaches to the measurement of 1) organizational structure and functioning, including variables directly controllable by administrative action; 2) professional (medical and nursing) performances and capabilities; 3) costs, and 4) patient prognostic variables which will be used to adjust for outcome differences due to differences in the mixes of patient severities of illness. The proposed research will test hypotheses about relationships among four important aspects of critical medical care delivery--costs, effectiveness in terms of patient survival, professional competence and organization. The variables are selected not only for their theoretical interest but also for their usefulness to administrators, practitioners, educators and policy makers in understanding and improving costs and benefits of providing technology intensive critical care.